The Silent Treatment

A man and his wife were having some problems at home
and were giving each other the silent treatment.
Suddenly, the man realized that the next day, he would need his wife to wake him
at 5:00 AM for an early morning business flight.
Not wanting to be the first to break the silence (and LOSE), he wrote on a piece of paper,
‘Please wake me at 5:00 AM.’He left it where he knew she would find it.
The next morning, the man woke up, only to discover it was 9:00 AM and he had missed his flight. Furious, he was about to go and see why his wife hadn’t wakened him,
when he noticed a piece of paper bythe bed.
The paper said, ‘It is 5:00 AM. Wake up.’

Men are not equipped for these kinds of contests.

A friend of mine has a novel way to make a few dollars for those of us who are somewhat technically challenged but still like the whole internet idea. Selling websites the old fashioned way.

First check out this video review of his idea.

You can see more and view all the info by clicking here.

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Hope that helps you guys.

Just saw this on the BBC…….amazing!

The ‘biofuel cells’ work by borrowing technology from living cells
Battery-like “biofuel cells” could in the future run on an energy drink or even vegetable oil, says a researcher.

A prototype cell has been described at a meeting of the American Chemical Society in the US.

The idea makes use of mitochondria, the power stations that in most living cells turn food into energy.

While applications may be far in the future, the work is a milestone in the integration of parts of a living cell into an electronic device.

Shelley Minteer of St Louis University in Missouri, US, said the devices could in the future replace disposable batteries in some applications.

Dr Minteer has been part of a wider research effort that is borrowing some of nature’s tricks for energy production.

Typically this involves the breaking down and rebuilding of molecules in a form that can be used by cells. That process unleashes electrons along the way - electrons that can be corralled and become electricity.

Until now, the efforts of Dr Minteer and her collaborators have focused on the use of enzymes, molecules that are expert at breaking down particular “fuel” molecules such as methanol or glucose.

But the new effort makes use of one of the living cell’s tiny constituent parts known as mitochondria.

These are a whole ensemble of enzymes working together to convert a range of “fuel” molecules into a form that cells can directly use.

“In order to be able to completely consume a fuel… you need a whole series of enzymes, anywhere from three, for something simple, to 22 for something like glucose, and you need to get these enzymes to work together,” Dr Minteer told BBC News. “The mitochondria channel the fuel from enzyme one directly to enzyme two and so on; they do this metabolism far more efficiently than we do by putting a soup of enzymes down on the electrode.”

The demonstration device has only been used with simple fuels made of a single type of molecule, as the enzyme approaches have required until now. But future efforts will aim to make the cells work with more familiar sources of energy.

“Mitochondria can break down a wide variety of fuels,” Dr Minteer explained.

“That means it can handle fuel mixtures that you might see in, say, an energy drink or a protein shake.”

‘New domain’

The work remains firmly at the experimental stage, and the researchers are working to change the materials used in the biofuel cells to make them produce more power.

However, the biofuel cell application may not be the most relevant focus, said Plamen Atanassov, director of the Center for Emerging Energy Technologies at the University of New Mexico.

Professor Atanassov told BBC News that the work was a “seminal achievement for biotechnology to be able to introduce [cell parts] into technical devices, especially in the context of energy harvesting,” but conceded that “whether it will have an immediate practical application remains to be seen”.

He said that “with all the acceleration that technology advances give us, things don’t happen overnight”, observing that it was a full 50 years between the first demonstration of a standard fuel cell and the Gemini space missions that first used them.

“The main contribution for this work is in the fundamental bridging of biotechnology and nanotechnology,” he explained.

“It ultimately may lead to the introduction of a whole new domain of fuels that we would never otherwise be able to tap.”

Jetlag – it can hit you hard whether your a travel hardened frequent flyer business man or a first time overseas tourist. Here are a few tips that may help you to deal with jetlag on your travels.

1.Get a good sleep/ rest before you head away. Travel can be a tiring ordeal at the best of times, and that is without the unforseen dalays etc. So at least start your journey well rested.

2.When on the plane, consider yourself already in your destinations time zone. By adjusting the time you sleep you can more quickly adopt on the time zone to where you are traveling. So adjust watch to the destination and work on that time.

3.There is much advice out there to drink a lot of water during the flight as it will help you stay hydrated, throughout out the trip. However for an adult…… as long as you don’t abuse things, the medicinal glass of red or whatever suits you can work wonders in relieving stress and maybe help you doze off.

4.During waking hours, take the opportunity to get up and stretch your legs. Just a little exercise will work wonders and also assist your body avoid DVT and such.

5.Don’t drink coffee and alcohol during the flight. I know I said otherwise in paragraph 3, but the point is don’t drink tea, coffee or alchohol to excess. They tend to dehydrate you and so make you more tired. So keep up the fluids ie water and soft drinks.

An important point – airlines have a much stricter ‘responsibility to serving alcohol policy’ these days as alchohol related incidents are on the rise.

6.Enjoy the trip. You on the plane for hours so relax, sit back and enjoy the time. Watch a movie, have a sleep. Leave your troubles behind.

7.When you arrive, even if feeling a little worse for wear, adjust your sleep schedule to the new time zone. By this I don’t mean forcing yourself to stay awake all day if you are shattered. But for example if you arrive in the morning, sure get your head down for a couple of hours to take the edge off. Hen get up and see the rest of the day out and go to bed at a similar time to what you do at home.

And finally ….. have a great holiday!

Paul Hodges has some interesting thoughts re boomers and their changing spending habits over at his blog.

The extract below is part of his comment;’

‘But they are getting closer to retirement, with a median age of 54 years. And so their need for ‘new things’ is reducing, as is their ability to afford them. Equally, as the above chart from thechartstore.com shows, their savings rate is starting to shoot up. They were let down by the stock market after the dot-com boom; then the housing market disappointed.
So now we seem to be seeing the start of a generational switch from spending to saving in the world’s most important market. From close to zero, the savings rate has already jumped to 6%, as baby-boomers worry about how to afford their retirement, especially as they can expect to live longer than any generation in history’.

Harry Dent argues that the economic cycle is dependent on the generation spending wave. And that indicates that things are not going to improve for quite a while yet. I hope he’s wrong, but in the mean time I am one of those boomers who is cutting spending and trying to save more!.

To read more go to Boomers cutting spending and start saving.